The job market for what? The service and retail industry is well supplied by would-be actors/actresses, screenwriters, and directors in addition to the usual suspects (teenagers, college students, slackers of various flavors), although as with all service jobs the door is a revolving one. There are few industrial jobs and virtually no manufacturing sector other than small cottage industries. From what I’ve seen, there’s the usual spread of white-collar jobs, from copy peons to senior management.
You can expect to pay $1000+ for a small one bedroom apartment in the decent parts of LA and surrounding areas; somewhat cheaper up in “the Valley” (which is a generic suburban sprawl) or in less favored areas (Compton, El Monte, et cetera), but you really don’t want to live there. Popular neighborhoods are in North Hollywood (expensive), Silver Lake (moderately expensive, near Dodgers Stadium), Los Feliz (getting pricey), Santa Monica (varies, but there’s little rental property left after the abortive attempt at rent control). There’s more suburban-type area south and east of downtown–Anaheim, Norwalk, et cetera–but I don’t know how much rental stuff there is or how the costs run there. I live in Pasadena, which is a bit removed from LA/Hollywood but is on the Gold Line (light rail); prices are still high but there’s more space; South Pas and and Glendale are cheaper, but hardly cheap. (One thing that might suprise you if you think of LA being an “urban sprawl” is how squeezed housing is in the LA area proper, owing to the semi-mountainous geography.) Very few people live in the downtown area proper, and for such a large urban center downtown hardly qualifies as a cultural center; stuff is kind of spread out. As you get to know people you can probably find cheaper housing, but getting to know people is kind of tough, IME.
Car insurance is high; moving here from Milwaukee’s East Side with a good driving record (just a couple of speeding tickets in the last few years) my rates effectively doubled, even after shopping around. Gas is also at the top end of national prices; right now we’re running about steadily $3.00/gallon. Traffic isn’t as bad as some might have you believe–obviously, anyone complaining about LA traffic hasn’t been on the New Jersey Turnpike–but it is thick. Public transit is limited (see www.mta.net); there’s a light rail system that radiates in North-South (Hollywood to Long Beach) and East-West (Sierra Madre to LAX and Norwalk) to spokes from downtown Union Station, but no sidelines, and a heavier MetroRail that runs out to eastern suburbs (Riverside, San Bernardino). The rest is buses with all that entails, so if you plan to use trains consider your proximity to the nearest station. Taxis are common in some areas but pricey; transit via bike is risky (few bike lanes and a lot of aggressive drivers).
It’s a big area, and no doubt with some persistance you can find a neighborhood you like, a residence to suit you, and a job you can tolerate, but here’s the $64,000 question: why Los Angeles in particular? It seems to be a mecca for people to migrate too (and you’ll find that the majority of people you run into, especially in the more trendy areas, are non-natives) but except for the admittedly excellent Mediterranian climate, and entertainment industry and attendent festivities it’s not superior in most ways to any other large city. Personally, if I were going West without a particular goal in mind I’d be inclined more to San Francisco, Seattle, or Portland. (I don’t really know San Diego so I can’t speak to it but it does seem that the job market is tighter down there.)
Stranger